November 21, 2011

UC—Davis feels the pain, after a viral video shows a campus police officer spraying students with pepper spray as they were seated on the sidewalk, as if they were some pesky weeds growing between the cracks and he was wielding the Roundup.

Penn State University Professor John McCarthy, "who has written extensively about campus protest and about police response to protest... said that campus police should first err on the side of permitting protest."

But if there is a need to clear a space, the standard response in a situation such as that at Davis, in which students are threatening no one, is to issue a warning and then to remove students one by one. Pepper spray would never be used in such a situation, he said.

Was there some idea that physically manhandling the students would have looked worse? I think we've learned that it doesn't!

167 comments:

You send your kid to college, hoping they learn something and that the police there help keep them safe. I do not expect them to be assaulted by Police, and I'm not sure you can claim this is anything but that. Maybe it's by rogue officers. I don't know.

Were my child at UC-Davis, I would be making certain that the Police and President's office were besieged with angry letters and phone calls from tuition-paying parents.

The pro-Occupy folks are doing a very good job of using anti-establishment photographs to make their case on the internet....just visit BoingBoing.

While you and Instapundit and other make very logical cases against Occupy, its imagery is very powerful and is going to create sympathy on the part of many....just remember that photo of the kid slipping the daisy into the National Guardsman's rifle...

I posed this question to someone else in a tweet: are police only allowed to use force when opposed with force from a suspect? What about non-compliance? For instance: if you're stopped by a policeman in your car and you refuse to comply with their orders, what amount of force are they allowed to use?

The students has been warned multiple times that they were subject to the use of non-lethal force if they refused to comply with police orders. Where is the line in law? Professor?

Is it me, or do the powers that be seem far more tolerant of leftist demonstrators --no matter how opprobrious their conduct-- than they are of others? Specifically I'm thinking of anti-abortion protestors at abortion clinics who were sued into oblivion with the full approval of the the justice system.

One can only imagine how quickly law enforcement would swoop in to dispatch the tea partiers if they were even fractionally as scofflaw as the leftist protesters. The old free speech for me but not for thee double standard.

Pepper spray burns for a few hours but nothing like a baton smashed upside your head or a rubber bullet. And the Davis kids are hardly street anarchists. Much ado about nada, except to some sentimental liberals (and academic drama queens).

So they're spraying people in the center of a circle to clear a path to the outside?

Have you actually watched the video?

Madison Man... if you don't believe it, your problem is with the UC Davis police chief. I made no assessment of the veracity of the claim. It is possible that the chief was blowing smoke, or it is possible that the chief confused something early in the tape with students surrounding the police later in the tape, or the chief may be referring to an incident off camera or before the tape started and confused two separate incidents. That's why we conduct investigations, and that's why they are pretty deliberate.

Where's the rest of the video? The vid starts seconds before the pepper spray. There are multiple cameras there, and this camera kept rolling long after anything interesting was going on. But we don't have anything on the confrontation as it was developing. You think the cameraman didn't see anything worth filming prior? Why?

Liberals are pretty gullible.

From what's on the tape alone, I would be inclined to suspend the officers and possibly fire them, if mitigating circumstances don't emerge from the investigation.

But only an idiot would believe that the tape alone tells the whole story.

May be they shouldn't have to move the students. Pepper spray is painful but not harmful. Those students are big and heavy, and would be painful and possibly harmful to the backs of campus police. Why is this not a valid form of removal? Because it is bad PR? It's all about how things look and not how they actually are. Since pepper spray may be the most efficient system.

The chief of police at University of California, Davis, has been placed on administrative leave because of the furor over pepper spraying peaceful protesters by campus officers.

The university says in a news release early Monday that it was necessary to place police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave to restore trust and calm tensions over Friday's pepper spray episode.

It was announced earlier that two police officers who were videotaped deploying pepper spray against seated protesters were also placed on administrative leave.

The other thing to take into account is this: Once the decision to clear the trespassers has been made by lawful authority, which is less likely to cause serious injury? Using pepper spray to break up the linked arms? Or using clubs?

Which is actually the safer course of action?

Had there been an effort to move the protesters before that had been met with restistance?

What warnings were given? We don't know, because someone edited them out... either after it was shot, or by not pressing the button before.

Why don't we see anything until seconds before the pepper spray?

Why?

And it's the lieutenant who deployed the pepper spray first, personally. Do you really think calling the LT is "step one?"

No. There was a process that happened prior to getting us here, off camera. There were lots of other cameras there. Someone has it. Where is it?

"as if they were some pesky weeds growing between the cracks and he was wielding the Roundup. "

Ha ha. The police should have warned those french-intensive biodynamic UC-Davis kids that they really were about to spray them with RoundUp. They would have moved their organic vegan skinny-jeaned butts pronto, problem solved.

The root of the problem can be found in their helicopter MadisonMan type parents. Spray those kids with systemic expulsions. Foams on contact, you'll see results in just hours. When they move back home with their parents, the pain will translocate throughout the system all the way to the roots. No root, no weed, no problem. Roundup your law-breaking students this fall so they don't come back next spring!

Nevertheless, why is anyone paying attention to these doofuses? (Doofi?)

If they aren't in the way of commerce or attending class, ignore them. they're boring and stupid and only want this sort of thing. Best to get on with life, and pay no attention to the dolts at all; they'll drift away once the reactions cease.

But if they are actually in the way, enforce early, vigorously and often. I'd park several horse around them, within inches of their feet, and start inching them away.

Whatever it is - no matter how ridiculously inane their protest is - these students have the absolute Constitutional right to peacefully assemble together on this public campus and to speak out and to protest the actions of their rogue government.

UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi approved campus police rules of engagement that allow these thugs to use chemical weapons against United States citizens doing nothing more than exercising their civil rights.

She must be HOUNDED out of her office for this obscene abuse of her power and made an example of so that other public officials will understand the price they will pay if they sick their riot thugs on American citizens.

You send your kid to college, hoping they learn something and that the police there help keep them safe.

And there's the rub - these kids aren't there to learn something - they think their empty heads are there to tell others what to do. I'm glad they got The Macho Response, wish they were punished more, and hope the cops get in no trouble.

All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players:They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. As, first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.And then the whining school-boy, with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lined,With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Were my child at UC-Davis, I would be making certain that the Police and President's office were besieged with angry letters and phone calls from tuition-paying parents.

Were MY child at UC Davis with a tuition of $14K (in state) to 35K (out of state) + PLUS living expenses and books etc.....I would be asking MY child just what the HELL she is thinking. Wasting her time instead of attending class and not studying.

"If you have this much time to participate in this idiotic Kabuki theater, then get a job and I'm not working MY ass off, sacrificing my life and paying for your college anymore if you are not going to take it serious and you are wasting it."

Somehow Kent State Redux with only pepper spray seems so different than National Guard M-1s 30 cal..

But the mobs leadership's need to instigate violence with their civil disorder remains the same since the French Revolution.

That was funny when the Expert they quoted on Civil Disobedience Theory was not just another hack from Penn State like Michael Mann and Joe Paterno, but it was from a new and respected institution named Pennsylvania State University.

Get a little perspective, Ken. People got killed at Kent State. Nobody's going to care that a few kids got pepper sprayed at UC Davis outside of UC Davis and places like Madison and Berkeley. The cops told them to move, they didn't, they got sprayed. Which I think is far preferable to having the cops have to manhandle them one by one and drag them off. Next time they'll move.

Were my child at UC-Davis, I would be making certain that the Police and President's office were besieged with angry letters and phone calls from tuition-paying parents.

Were my child at UC Davis, I'd make sure he was going to class instead of wasting his time and my money at a lame protest. And then I'd be upset these protesters are wasting my tuition money by putting an extra burden on the campus police.

"...said that campus police should first err on the side of permitting protest."

Ok, err first. But eventually you are required to make them leave. I suppose they could've dragged them away bodily, and dealt with the inevitable injuries and claims of injury. Pepper spray, painful but leaving no lasting damage, was supposed to be the safer and less harmful alternative, wasn't it?

They're not supposed to be there. They've been asked to leave. Instead of leaving, they decide to turn themselves into a parody of civil rights protesters. And then, when their passive resistance is met by the most passive response available to law enforcement, it's an outrage.

What should the cops and the administration have done? At what point are they allowed to do their jobs?

I'll will probably end up in Hell, but yes, I laughed out loud when I saw the students being pepper sprayed.

Also, I would like to second the suggestion that water cannons be used instead. Not set with such force that the protesters tumble down the path, but forceful enough that standing would be difficult. This will not work on really hot days since it would just be fun, but it is a perfect three season solution.

If my kid was there, I'd ask him why do you think causing all these other people such problems was a worth while way to spend your day (which I'm paying for). He better have a good reason. If he does, then I'd tell him: "Then it was worth getting pepper sprayed for. Take it like a man."

Protesting has become some holy activity now, but often it's nothing different than your 2 year old sitting on the floor of the supper market crying for Fruit Loops".

UC's are for the top California students, so what we're looking at is pepper-spraying the elites, sort of a symbolic gesture against all the 1%-10%.

These students need to make a symbolic gesture for the 90%, letting other students have their space in their classes. Instead, they hoard their opportunity, wasting it like a billionaire buying a ridiculously nice yacht, spending their time doing that which they could do without a UC Davis enrollment.

They are mocking those students who work hard but don't have the opportunity to study at a high quality UC school.

Not that pepper-spray is good or that this shouldn't be reviewed. But it is ludicrous to me to see UC students acting like they are in the 1%.

They are the oppressors. They, by nature of their educational opportunities, are in the oppressor class. And they're acting like oppressors act, fomenting trouble then playing the victim.

I rather doubt she's be doing such a protest, but I don't really know what she does at College, except that she has learned to pre-drink, and is a flip-cup champ. (I'm so proud). Really, once they're in college, there's not much you can do but cross your fingers and hope they remember what you've taught them.

There is no other method of removing them that is reliably any safer. There is no way for the cops to win this and also remove the protesters. That's the whole point of the protest. I'd prefer chloroform.

Protesters sitting down , not attempting to get up , a big cop going up and down the row spraying them, how was something like that going to diffuse the situation ?

If the cops felt threatened and surrounded by protesters, would it not be a reasonable assumption that the action of assaulting the seated protesters with pepper spray would incite the remaining protesters?

As some have said, the more police brutality shown across the airwaves in these protests, the more sympathetic the protesters look. Free speech and the right to assemble is under real threat here, unlike the "the government is coming for my guns" paranoia of the Tea Party.

It seems axiomatic that those who most boast about the "greatness" of America, her superiority to all other nations or governments that are or have ever been, are most ready to howl like monkeys at the sight of citizens exercising their rights, and the most hungry to see those rights-exercising citizens be punished harshly by the authorities.

Obviously, such persons resent being reminded that they wear their chains of slavery willingly.

"This police behavior is precisely what the Occupiers are trying to provoke."

Big fucking deal?

The police are ABSOLUTELY 100% rogue here and worse the UC-Davis Chancellor approved the rules of engagement that allowed the police to use chemical weapons against these citizens. That fucking cunt should be run out of this campus on a fucking rail.

It frankly doesn't matter how stupid this protest is. Our Constitution goddamn gives us the fucking right to have a protest and if the rogue police insist on gassing people with chemical weapons when they protest their rogue government then frankly we need to just start prosecuting these police thugs for treason and hanging them (and failing that utilizing the other 2nd Amendment remedies that our Constitution provides for and that I keep hearing our politicians talk about.)

Better to go down in a blaze of glory than to allow these fucking Democrat Party Nazi thugs like Linda Katahi to destroy the Bill of Rights and eviscerate the United States Constitution.

Won't happen on my fucking watch.

Democrats had better reign in these people before someone gets one to the helmet.

These students need to make a symbolic gesture for the 90%, letting other students have their space in their classes. Instead, they hoard their opportunity, wasting it like a billionaire buying a ridiculously nice yacht, spending their time doing that which they could do without a UC Davis enrollment.

Yes, Paddy O. Exactly what I was thinking. If they want more equality, they can go to Cal State Bakersfield. Let another kid have their UC experience.

These kids would, I'm sure, have accepted a place at USC without protesting the $60,000/year price tag.

I had to deal with this same crap in 1969 when I was a college student in San Francisco.

I was pretty ambivalent about the Vietnam War. On one hand, I didn't think we should be there and that it would be good to get out. On the other hand, I had friends, family and a boyfriend who had either volunteered or were drafted an involuntarily were thrust into war and I felt deserved our support.

So, while I sort of understood some of the reasons for the protests, I also had feelings for the military personnel who were NOT all "baby killers" etc etc etc.

My main beef with the moron protesters was that they were IN MY WAY and impeding my ability to get to class. Yelling, screaming, in your face and sometimes even grabbing at me. "Don't touch me!!!" If pepper spray existed then, I would have been tempted to use it.

"I" was working a full time night job so that I could go to school and take a full class load during the day. I was paying for my own tuition and paying for my own living expenses. I was tired, sleepy, broke and wanted to get to class on time and not miss the lectures so that I might be able to move on and hopefully up in my life. The protesters were a huge HUGE annoyance that even if I did agree with them......get the HELL out of my way.

This current crop of useful idiots are protesting stupidities. They are pampered babies who are throwing big tantrums and posing NO solutions. They are abusing the freedoms that we should be cherishing.

Probably also the same irritation with the Vietnam era useful idiots. No solutions. No productive thinking. No plans. Just all sound and fury signifying nothing.

My main beef with the moron protesters was that they were IN MY WAY and impeding my ability to get to class. Yelling, screaming, in your face and sometimes even grabbing at me. "Don't touch me!!!" If pepper spray existed then, I would have been tempted to use it.

I'm sorry, I missed the part of the tape where the policeman was touched or screamed at by the people he pepper sprayed.

We spent several hours at Student Orientation listening to various police officers describe how they are here at the UW to keep students safe. I suspect parents at UCD get a similar boring indoctrination.

The protesters were a huge HUGE annoyance that even if I did agree with them......get the HELL out of my way.

I agree with you, annoying people should be taught a lesson with beatings and the use of chemical weapons. The world should revolve around you and anybody you find the least bit annoying should be dealt with harshly.

I don’t see this as necessarily being excessive. There seems very little disagreement that the police were justified in using physical force to bodily remove the protesters. It also seems pretty clear that the risk of injury to the protesters (particularly if they resist) is greater from being manhandled than being pepper sprayed. I don’t see it as wrong for the police to first try a lower level of force that carries less risk of injury to try to get the protesters to comply and after seeing that that doesn’t work, escalate to a higher level.

It seems to me that this is preferable to either allowing some people to break the law with impunity or having the police automatically default to the highest level of force.

"I had to deal with this same crap in 1969 when I was a college student in San Francisco.

"I was pretty ambivalent about the Vietnam War. On one hand, I didn't think we should be there and that it would be good to get out. On the other hand, I had friends, family and a boyfriend who had either volunteered or were drafted an involuntarily were thrust into war and I felt deserved our support."

Isn't the best way to support friends and family sent to off to war to agitate for the end of the war and bring them home? It seems exceedingly perverse and wrong-headed to oppose bringing them home and to support the policies that put them in harm's way.

"My main beef with the moron protesters was that they were IN MY WAY and impeding my ability to get to class."

Oh, poor, poor, pitiful you! You way to class was made a little bumpy because your fellow students were protesting a murderous war! How could they have been so inconsiderate?!

We spent several hours at Student Orientation listening to various police officers describe how they are here at the UW to keep students safe. I suspect parents at UCD get a similar boring indoctrination.

I don't know about UCD, but other UC schools make it clear they aren't there to raise your children. They are there to create an environment conducive to learning.

Isn't the best way to support friends and family sent to off to war to agitate for the end of the war and bring them home? It seems exceedingly perverse and wrong-headed to oppose bringing them home and to support the policies that put them in harm's way.

Possibly....possibly not. However, screaming at fellow students, trying to block them from going about their business, destroying property, ruining businesses and alienating many people who might otherwise be persuaded to you view point doesn't work.

In addition, I had those friends who supported the war and volunteered to join the military. Should I be unsupportive of them?

When the protesters started spitting on returning military (I know this happened from people that I know personally so don't bother trying to say it didn't happen) and calling them names (baby killers, murderers). Attacking the soldiers, many of whom didn't have a choice in serving.....they lost any right to respect from me.

If you or anyone else wants to protest, have at it. It is your right. It is not your right to harass other people and destroy private or public property.

If you are going to protest....have a solution to the problem. Just throwing a tantrum doesn't get it.

All I'm able to offer is anecdotal evidence that this isn't the blockbuster building-sympathy-for-protestors moment that OWS supporters think it is. I have a very center-left/liberal FB feed, some members of which posted about this incident. One guy posted the video, which was followed by a variety of folks (about 10) commenting dispassionately and without feeling sorry for the protestors. Many of them included the "I'm sympathetic toward their cause..." disclaimer, but ended with variations on "...don't feel sorry for them." I found that very interesting.

In response to a flood of YouTube videos that depict police abuse there is a new trend. In at least three states (Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland), it is now illegal to record an on-duty police officer....

... if the rogue police insist on gassing people with chemical weapons when they protest their rogue government,...

You're as bad as Freder, who doesn't understand kids go to school to LEARN not TEACH, but you don't get WALL STREET isn't WASHINGTON. Nobody's protesting "their rogue government" - they don't know what they're protesting. They're kids having a tantrum because they're stupid - which is why they should be in school.

BTW - I like the water cannon idea, but full-force so we can watch them roll down the street. That would be cool,...

UC's are for the top California students, so what we're looking at is pepper-spraying the elites, sort of a symbolic gesture against all the 1%-10%.

True. They're not the Occupy movement really. But even chi chi humanities students got some rights, Paddy. Most reasonable people (including demos) would cry foul were Teabugs rallying for Scott Walker or Mitt Romneyoid pepper sprayed.

But note...some of the teabugs hate teachers/educators so much that they're dissing Dr. Katehi. The Ho! With racist-sexist overtones as well.

If you care about your kids safety at school, then one thing to teach them would be that protesting is defying the authorities who must by necessity have force as an option to maintain order. Your protest may be justified, or not, but it's never gonna be risk free, ever, no matter who is in charge, or what laws are passed.

Tell your kids to grow up, the police are not your parents or the neighbors. They will hurt you if you force their hand. This will never change.

The whole purpose of civil disobedience is to challenge the authority to hurt you. It depends entirely on the good will of the cops. Don't be surprised if they do what you are begging them to.

Robert Cook said...More pertinent, they don't give a shit that students--American citizens--exercising their rights peacefully, were subjected to unwarranted and unprovoked physical abuse by the police.

One does not need to sympathize with their (or anyone's) cause to feel outrage at such a blatant expression of the police state's contempt for its citizenry

Given the fact that you belive in income redistribution managed by the government and bigger, more government at every turn, it is rather difficult to belive your silly claims out outrage.

Robert Cook said: "More pertinent, they don't give a shit that students--American citizens--exercising their rights peacefully, were subjected to unwarranted and unprovoked physical abuse by the police."

Perhaps. I won't quote them all here, but the gist is that they took a, "Well, you don't disperse when the police tell you to, what do you expect to happen?" attitude. These are non-idealogical types that typically vote Democrat -- presumably the voter OWS needs to sway their way. They expressed no sympathy for the students. I admit, I was surprised.

There is plenty of police abuse of rights going on around the country, but this is such uppity privileged cry baby shit.

People are being killed, their pets shot, their homes destroyed, their families torn apart, but we are upset that some students got the equivalent of a frat hazing? Perspective. This is not abuse, and the hissy fit is insulting to real victims.

I tried to watch the video, but I was only able to make it through about 3 minutes.

My horror and moral outrage at these poor innocent students being subjected to something worse than the Holocaust caused me to projectile-vomit onto my monitor.

But seriously, I only made it through about 3 minutes because one of those people shrieking "shame on you" has such a shrill piercing wail that I just couldn't take it. It sounded like a cat having its nuts pulled of with pliers.

If I was the cop carrying the paint ball gun, probably filled with pepper balls, I would have just opened up on those spoiled whining sons-of-bitches after about 30 seconds and wouldn't have stopped til I was out of balls. It's probably a good thing I'm not a cop.

I'm still waiting for one of the liberal commenters here, who are basically shrilly caterwauling "shame on you" with your keyboards, to tell us what the police should have done here, given the protestors' failure to comply with their orders to disperse.

Conduct a dialogue? Just say "OK, you win then, if you won't go peacefully." What?

Absolutely. However, when protests decidedly irritate others, a rhetorical pepper spraying (and not so rhetorical in the case of the crap left at parks), one asks whether the protests are indeed moral and justified.

Protest should not be a goal in themselves, so I think it's important to shove their supposed moral superiority back in their faces. They have rights, but they don't have ethical or moral priority. Indeed less so, given their state of privilege, so I can argue that the events should be reviewed while thinking that those students probably needed a bit of a spanking sooner or later to stop their tantrums, because that exactly what it is. When privileged kids don't get everything they want, they throw a tantrum.

This is entirely different than protests in the past. And that needs to be voiced. These are privileged kids arguing for their privilege, making it much more akin to looters robbing stores than marching for civil rights.

"People are being killed, their pets shot, their homes destroyed, their families torn apart, but we are upset that some students got the equivalent of a frat hazing? Perspective. This is not abuse, and the hissy fit is insulting to real victims."

It's all on the continuum of state violence inflicted on those the state claims to serve, and it all warrants--demands--to be decried equally. It is all an expression of contempt and sadism by the state toward the populace.

That's a very good question, and one of those few times we have direct connection with what Jesus actually did.

There were several approaches to government in the time of Jesus. Among these were the zealots who sought to use rhetorical and physical violence against the Romans.

What was the message of Jesus? Help your neighbor. Pay attention to your own life. Be the change you are after, essentially. Jesus was not a zealot. For him, it seems, Rome was a secondary issue that often clouded the need for each person to live righteously in their own life. This in an age in which protests were much more common, responses were much more violent (if we were Rome, there would be crucifixes set up all over UC Davis today), and Jesus refused to get into the politics of the matters. Not that he wasn't political. He was. But he focused on individual's particular transformation.

Jesus wouldn't be out protesting, he'd be out healing and sharing meals with the actual outcasts. He didn't see power as something to grab or whine about, but came in the form of a servant, and willingly sacrificed himself for the sake of others.

He didn't put on a show of protest, while living a life of extreme privilege, then complain when someone pushed back against his message or ministry.

Over concrete sidewalks? I wonder if any of them would have received bleeding scrape wounds.

I wonder how many would have dislocated arms, or complained of lingering neck and back pain.

You scoffed at this, but I wonder how many of these cops in full riot gear would have pulled a hammy or thrown their back out trying to drag 180 pound babies around while they lie limp. I'm not sure if you've ever dragged a body around, MadMan, but it takes a bit of effort.

And what happens when someone decides they don't want to be dragged along the sidewalk and they start to kick and claw and spit?

There's a reason that less-than-lethal technology exists, MadMan. It's the safest way to get people to comply in these situations -- safest for both the police and the idiot lying in the walkway like a giant baby throwing a tantrum.

And from what we can see in this video, the cops are surrounded and outnumbered -- not by the few people they spray, but by all the others milling around shrieking at them.

This could easily go very bad, very fast. Which is what the protesters want.

You'll note that the police actually warn the protesters sitting on the sidewalk what will happen. You see these people pull their collars up as shields and put their heads down and cover their faces.

Then the cop holds out the can to show them, and the crowd, what it is, and gives them what could only be described as a light dusting. That's not how you pepper-spray someone. You give them a full blast right in the face -- otherwise it's not terribly effective.

These kids didn't really get pepper-sprayed. Saying they were pepper-sprayed is like J claiming he got plastered last night because his mom let him finish her can of PBR.

"I'm still waiting for one of the liberal commenters here, who are basically shrilly caterwauling "shame on you" with your keyboards, to tell us what the police should have done here, given the protestors' failure to comply with their orders to disperse."

Who says the protestors had to disperse just because the police told them to?

The police should have walked away...as they did, slinking away in shame in the face of the crowd shouting "shame on you" at them.

The police lost, here, and the protestors won; the police failted to effect dispersal of the protestors, they ended up being chased away by the nonviolent protestors, and they invalidated their own authority in their unwarranted and unprovoked infliction of physical abuse on the crowd.

Isn't the best way to support friends and family sent to off to war to agitate for the end of the war and bring them home?

Not unless you happen to be “agitating” in the country and against the government that your friends and family are fighting. Protesting within your own country, to the extent it has an effect on the war, seems to only send a message to the enemy that (a) your country is divided and (b) if they continue to hold on or press forward with attacks, they can get you to blink first.

MadMan, next you'll demand that police shoot the gun out of armed suspects' hands, rather than aiming center-mass.

This is the real world, not Gunsmoke or a Bruce Lee movie. There are physical limits to what 40-year-old cops in full riot gear can do; they can only haul and drag 180 pounds of flopping dead weight, that you can only pick up certain ways, so far and so many times.

"I'm still waiting for one of the liberal commenters here, who are basically shrilly caterwauling "shame on you" with your keyboards, to tell us what the police should have done here, given the protestors' failure to comply with their orders to disperse."

Who says the protestors had to disperse just because the police told them to?

Robert Cooke: "Who says the protestors had to disperse just because the police told them to?"

See, that's just what I told that constable in Memphis. Who the fuck is he to tell me about "property rights" and "laws against sodomy of farm animals"? That fucking goat had it coming. In spades. He was asking for it; the longing in his enigmatically rectangular pupils was undeniable.

"The police should have walked away...as they did, slinking away in shame..."

Oh, sure, but then Boomers will go into any discussion of music as if nothing else afterward matters one iota. Granted, Disco followed the Boomers' formative music, but I dare say there have been other movements in musical genres since disco, Tony P not withstanding.

A sign of the privileged wanting their privileges. The State of CA is in a massive budget crisis where there will be cuts.

Now, these students, who are privileged, could be protesting against cuts in health care, or services to the handicapped or poor, or any number of other things.

But, like the privileged always say, "Screw the poor, we want our baubles." So, they argue for tuition and UC budgets to stay the same, and to, in essence, cut other services to others, much more in need.

These students hate the poor, and while it's sad they got sprayed, the fact they got sprayed for a selfish, privilege oriented, cause makes them more sad.

It's like if Wall St brokers were in Zucotti Park arguing for tax reductions for the wealthy.

"Oh, poor, poor, pitiful you! Your way to class was made a little bumpy because your fellow students were busy protesting a murderous war! How could they have been so inconsiderate?!"

A 'murderous war,' though, Robert, which none of them gave a second's further thought about after the draft ended. A 'murderous war' that meant a great deal of murder after the fall of Saigon, but since the fellow students' tender little buttocks were safe from VC bullets (and the gonorrhea they caught from that hot chick at the rally had cleared up), who cares about a bunch of dead gooks?

Pastafarian said... There are physical limits to what 40-year-old cops in full riot gear can do; they can only haul and drag 180 pounds of flopping dead weight, that you can only pick up certain ways, so far and so many times.

Pumper trucks and fire hoses :)

or if you really want to get tough, get the honey truck from the Dairy barns. The one used by the organic farms to spray liquid gold (well brown) on the tomatoes

Cops are not an exquisitely calibrated instrument of social justice. They are a blunt instrument of order. You can always find some cop who goes too far in dangerous or emotionally charged situations. That's what happens.....It would behoove those who claim that the odd rape, defecation, or stabbing at the OWS sites are anomalies to be more tolerant of the cops in this occurrence.

These spoiled children have been taught a valuable lesson, one that they should have learned a long time ago: YOU ARE NOT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. Your ideas, your desires, your wants, your needs, and your rights do not exist in a vaccum. They are balanced against those of other people, and if you are unwilling to recognize that fact you will be inconvenienced. Whether they've learned the valuable lesson they've been taught remains to be seen. I expect that they're all pretty far gone down rage and resentment road so there may need to be additional "teachable moments."

MadisonMan said..."Those students are big and heavy, and would be painful and possibly harmful to the backs of campus police."

Oh for God's sake.====================Any time police have to manhandle even "peaceful protestors" - there will be injuries, even cops we later find out are entitled to 40 years of full disability pay for back injury from taxpayers. Even when successful in removing protestors one at a time, when you have 2,000 anarchists sitting down and locking arms to occupy a space and shut down all other peaceful use of the space ......

Do the math. If it takes 4 cops to remove one demonstrator "peacefully going limp", 15 minutes to remove that demonstrator for arrest processingwith the 4 plus another two cops to Mirandize and do paperwork...you have hours or days needed to open up the public space or campus for other's use.

Unless you call for hundreds of extra cops on Overtime to further hit the taxpayer...or call cops from other jurisdictions or call out the National Guard.

Clearly, the police need other tools than only hiring 6'5" steroid-soaked ex-college linebackers adept at powering over a foe. (no females need apply).

They're UC students. Privileged university, privileged education, privileged lifestyle. They are among the educated elites, given a privilege far beyond what the great, great majority of humanity has had the opportunity to experience. They have privilege of choice, of possibilities, everything is open to them, though not everything is free or without work. But they have limitless options of how to lead their life and what to study and what to do each of their days. That's enormous privilege.

For that matter, isn't any order to disperse a violation of the 1st Amendment?

Uh, no, lawful orders to disperse are given all the time.

Mostly, they're obeyed.

The hook is that, while one has the right to peaceably assemble (little detail there), there is usually a permit to parade or whatever. The courts do recognize that certain boundaries of time and space - and behavior - are reasonable.

So, in all probability, the order was lawful, given that the little morons were blocking access to people who wanted to pass.

Holy smokes, that is the evil essence they sprayed on Mexican grass back in the 70s. At which point the scientists in Northern California and Hawaii started producing the super powerful stuff. You could actually drive a car after the Mexican stuff. Not so much the Hawaiian. Paraquat had very unintended consequences for the dope business.

For that matter, isn't any order to disperse a violation of the 1st Amendment?

They are students at UCD, on at least one or three scales, that is prima facia evidence of privilege.

On the opic of lawful orders, a bunch of courts have determined that a citizen, when given a reasonable order to disperse (etc) by a cop, had best comply. The "lawwfulness" can best be addressed later. Disobeying the basic instructions opens you up to aa lot of other consequences for which you will be punished for in a court, or treated for in a hospital.

PS: this concept of disobidence to a cop is a pecular concept. If a German Politzei, tells you once to "get out of the car", he says that once politely, then comes in through the window with a baton, and no amount of expost facto lawyering in court will keep you from the whooping and court costs.

People forget this, but part of the strategy of civil disobedience is to create media images that are sympathetic. This isn't a hidden motive -- it's an explicit part of the strategy.

It's incredibly stupid of people who want to stop protests to bring out sprays, water-hoses, and clubs. Those images generate sympathy and media attention.

The University created an image of the administration spraying students protesting ridiculously high tuition increases. Idiots.

===============There is nothing "peaceful" about demonstrators that employ passive aggressive tactics to shut down the ability of the univolved to go about their lives. Be it a public square, a shopping mall, a school building, or gays briefly succeeding in shutting down the LA Freeway by blocking it to protest Prop 8.We all know the progressive jewish media "narratives". 1. Cops on horses are Cossacks.2. Any use of water cannons instantly triggers the progressive jewish media producers to haul up the old civil rights footage of water hoses and Bull Connor. Water is a SYMBOL, you see. It is Selma! All over again!!3. Use of tasers, batons, pepper spray triggers the instant deployment of leftist lawyers on the media channels - calling it depravity, "shredding of 1st Amendment Rights".4. Media filters through hours of footage if cops are forced to manhandle protestors to get them to move - looking for the attractive girl grabbed by 4 brutal cops, the old Stalinist stalwart screaming "The Whole World is Watching"...

In the past, we could afford these fun and games.The media made money, the lawyers and pilloried cops got well paid by the taxpayer. And the disruptive "got The Cause advanced", and were never sued by society for the harm their protest methods caused as suing them could "chill" their 1st Amendment Rights.

We are broke, the money for these fun and games isn't there anymore. We cannot devolve into Weimar or 1968 France, where the radical mobs took over and owned the streets and shut the economy in various cities down.

This could easily go very bad, very fast. Which is what the protesters want.

And spraying completely passive people in the face with pepper spray isn't going to make matters worse. The most amazing thing about this situation is that the students didn't turn violent. That all they did was chant and let the police retreat (which contradicts the self-serving statements of the police) shows remarkable restraint on their part.